On Being Podcast: Gordon Hempton on Sound, Silence, and Sense of Place

Gordon Hempton is an acoustic ecologist. His journey to this uncommon calling is profiled in the podcast "On Being with Krista Tippett." If the podcast medium ever had an ideal subject, Hempton and his philosophy of sound might be it. Natural soundscapes like the the hollow hum of wind through driftwood punctuate this fascinating look at something we so rarely think about—the auditory connection to a sense of place. Though he travels the world collecting and recording sound, it is his dedication to silence that provokes the most thought. Silence, to Hempton, is neither empty nor frightening. “Even when we just let it exist,” he says, “it feeds our soul.”